Realign(ed)
by sifuXANA
Summary: Rewrite of 4x09 "Check Your Ed". Remi isn't gone; she never was.
1. Internal

_A/N: I really liked some parts of "Check Your Ed", like all the callbacks to the first few episodes, but other parts bugged me, like the show's insistence on making Shepherd such a clear-cut villain. So I decided to rewrite some scenes from the episode. I repurposed some of the dialogue that I liked, but hopefully the other stuff is different enough that those bits aren't boring. This story will have two parts. Enjoy!  
_

_Disclaimer: I don't own Blindspot._

* * *

Kurt bursts out of the room to the sound of frantic beeping behind him. He paces the hallway, timing his footsteps to his ragged breaths, but the sick feeling follows him. He can't believe what he's done. In his eagerness to get Jane back, he might have doomed her.

Patterson's in the hallway beside him before he even hears her approach. "What did I do?" he mutters, half to her and half to himself.

"Kurt," she just says, with a gentleness that crawls under his skin. It makes Kurt want to hurt something.

He rounds on her. "What did I _do_?" he repeats.

"It's done," Patterson states evenly, meeting his eyes. "There isn't time for this right now. Jane needs you in there, not out here."

Kurt deflates. "If she dies, it'll be my fault," he whispers. "I can't—I can't lose her again, Patterson."

"I know," she says, and he hears her own loss resonating through her words. "But we're doing everything we can. You're not going to lose her."

"You don't know that." Kurt glances at the door, feels his anxiety spike. "I should have just—"

"Just what? Let her stay Remi? Give up on Jane?"

"She's still my wife," he bursts out. His tone sounds too desperate in the empty hallway; he tries again, quieter. "Remi. She's still my wife."

"Kurt," Patterson cuts in firmly. "I don't know what's going to happen. But you need to keep it together _for Jane_ right now, okay? Go in there, and hold her hand, and tell her she's going to make it through this. You have to be strong for her."

Kurt lets out a long breath, stills his shaking hands. Patterson's pointed gaze is searing into his averted eyes. After a moment, he nods wordlessly, and she pulls open the door back into the hell he's sanctioned.

* * *

The coin is cleaner than she recalls, as if the years of passing it back and forth never occurred at all. Jane rubs it between her fingers one last time before pressing it into the slot. As the elevator jolts awake, she dries her cheeks with a swipe of her sleeve.

But the elevator plunges downward instead of rising. "Why is it going down?" Jane yelps. She turns to Kurt, or this facsimile of him, anyway. He's not quite the man she remembers.

"You said Remi was above us," he says.

"She is," Jane answers uneasily. A cold dread is taking hold of her. "So where is it taking us?"

Just then the elevator jerks to a halt. The doors slide smoothly open to reveal Shepherd, flanked by four men with their guns trained straight ahead. Wisely, Kurt hangs back. But Jane walks forward without thinking.

All of a sudden the men are surrounding Kurt, dragging him out of the room. He grunts in surprise and struggles against them, but Jane just watches them go. Something in her knows she has to face this alone.

"Hello, Jane," Shepherd greets her. "You remember me, don't you?"

"I remember you," Jane replies. She takes a steadying breath. "But I'm not here for you. I'm here for Remi."

Laughing, Shepherd pulls her into the same game as always. She taunts her, cuts her down, reminds her that Remi is more than she'll ever be. Always the same thing, a hundred different ways. Jane is tired of it.

"You expect me to roll over while Remi steals my life from me?" she hisses at Shepherd. "I want my memories back. They're _mine_."

"You're a fool," Shepherd retorts, advancing. "You stole _her_ life. Now she's taken it back."

Jane takes a step backward, suddenly feeling unsure of herself.

"But maybe I can help you," the older woman continues, smiling broadly now. "You want to remember?"

In an instant the armed men close around Jane, seizing her by the arms and dragging her back towards the elevator. "No! No!" she shrieks, fighting to break their hold, but she isn't strong here. As they bundle her into the elevator, she hears Shepherd say with eerie stillness from behind her, "Then remember all of it."

* * *

The elevator descends even further, even faster. The doors open into darkness. Into an abyss. She's walking down a staircase, straight into the depths. Her feet don't make a sound. It's all swallowed up in the dark.

Beds. There are beds down here. Who the hell could sleep in this place? Dim lights flicker with every step. The children are all staring at her, dead-eyed stares. Dead-eyed children with dirty hopeless faces, limbs brittle enough to snap. Each head lifts only to look at her.

Alice feels her breath catch in her throat. She turns back to the door she came through, but it's gone. She'll never get out of this hole.

Then a splinter of light appears in front of her. There's a hand in hers. The room is dissolving after her with every step she takes, but she knows she can never leave it behind.

They emerge back into that too-white room. Jane blinks at the searing light, realizes her face is dirty too, and tears have cut clean tracks through it. She wipes her cheeks with her sleeve as Shepherd lets go of her hand.

"Memories can be a dangerous thing," Shepherd taunts, but the malice has faded from her tone. "Do you still want to remember?"

Jane looks behind her, but the dark room only exists within her now. A phantom heartbeat pulses beneath her fingers, and she takes a breath. "Yes."

This time it's Shepherd who takes her by the arms, but she isn't quite as rough as her men. She marches Jane down an endless hall. Every inch holds a memory, and every memory rips through her with fresh anguish. Mayfair's face the instant she's shot, just before she crumples to the ground. Oscar, meeting her eyes one last time before he's gone, too. Kurt waiting for her in the safe house, his voice low and dangerous, a doll resting on the table. And the nameless ones: people dropping at Remi's hand, at Jane's. Everyone she's ever hurt, and beneath them, everyone who's ever hurt her.

Jane's whole body shudders. She staggers back against Shepherd as her knees give out. The woman's grip is steely, resolute.

"This is what you wanted," Shepherd reminds her. "Get up."

So Jane does. And with every inch of ground she gains, she starts to feel stronger. She fights her way past months of torture, past the countless bullets she fired as a Navy SEAL, past a little brown rabbit with its neck broken. Each time she thinks she can't keep going, she squares her shoulders and soldiers through.

Little by little, she conquers her grief.

Then her next step blanks out the walls. Behind her, Shepherd comes to an abrupt halt. "Keep moving," she commands, then, quieter: "I can't come with you for this part."

Without hesitation, Jane leaves her behind. The air around her blazes into life all at once: she's marrying Kurt, all her friends around her; she and Ian run alongside each other to their favorite spot overlooking the city, just in time for the sunset; Oscar is leaning to kiss her for the first time, and she never thought she'd be so in love. Jane feels a surge of white-hot strength, filling in every place where she was lacking. It comes from the sum of her life, all the grief and all the happiness, everything in between. The force of it drives her through the door at the end of the hall without another thought.

Shepherd waits for her, stone-faced, alone in the middle of the same cavernous room. She doesn't say a word. Jane notices, for the first time, the lines around her eyes. A sudden image surfaces from her reclaimed memories: Remi, trying to rally Shepherd again. Trying to fix a spirit broken by failure, by endless torture. She blinks the memory away to look at the woman standing before her, in a form that no longer matches reality.

"I remember now," Jane tells her. "But I'm not Remi. You can't control me anymore."

"I guess I have trouble letting go," Shepherd smirks. But her snark is halfhearted, her expression at odds with her words. It's so easy to see past it now, to see who's really left.

"Stop," Jane commands, forceful without being loud. "This isn't what you are anymore. You're tired, and you're weak, and you just want to flee the country so you can live the rest of your life in peace."

Shepherd smiles: mostly bitter, but a little sad. The remnants of her façade crumble. Stripped to the broken person underneath—bruised, thin, hollow-eyed—she's what Jane herself might be if she'd never gotten out of that blacksite, and somehow that makes it easier for Jane to talk to her. She tries to gather what she wants to say, but what comes to her belongs to Remi: a constant, suppressed ache.

"I know I was already too damaged, when you found me." She takes a shaky breath. "But you could have helped me."

"No one could have helped you. You and Roman, you were feral. You were trouble. I was the only one who would take you."

Jane's voice breaks when she answers, "You could have tried."

Shepherd is silent for a minute. Her features flicker pensively; finally she nods. "I suppose I was already damaged, too."

Jane closes her eyes. "I don't want to hate you," she confesses.

"Then don't," Shepherd replies. "Sometimes hate makes things too easy."

The sound of her adoptive mother's voice in the dark is almost comforting, but Jane's just gotten those memories back and she can't forget. Not yet.

"But I can't forgive you, either," she adds quietly.

"That's okay, too," Shepherd says, as gentle as Jane's ever heard her, and when she opens her eyes again, she's alone.

* * *

Jane's hand is so limp in his. As he holds it, Kurt tries to remember the times he's been in this position before, sitting at his wife's side as she recovered from her latest injury. It's not an insignificant number, considering their line of work. He reminds himself, as a comfort, that she got back up every single time.

He runs his thumb lightly over the intricate lines on the back of her hand. When she's asleep, it's easy to forget that this woman is a stranger to him, has been for months. Kurt shifts closer.

"Remi doesn't control you, Jane," he whispers to her. "You are just as strong as she is." There's no trace of recognition on her face, nothing but her steady breathing. Kurt watches her for a moment. In and out, in and out. "Take your life back."

* * *

Jane can't stop watching the doll dangling from Alice's small hand. She sees a steady repetition of Kurt dropping it onto a table, the most dangerous cast to his movements. Over and over, each time it swings back.

They turn a corner and suddenly he's there, filling up the hallway. He still wears the same innocuous expression, but there's a gun held at his side. "Are you ready?" he asks with strange intensity. "Are we going to bring her down?"

"Kurt—" Jane flounders for the right words. This feels wrong somehow. Alice, voiceless Alice, seems to sense it too, shrinking away from him.

"Remi has a lot to pay for," Kurt declares. He pounds a fist into his palm, still holding the gun precariously. Jane flinches back. This is not like the man she knows at all.

"This isn't about you, Kurt," she tries.

"Of course it's not about me." He looks wounded. "She stole your life from you. I just want to help you get it back."

Jane shakes her head. _Not like this_, she thinks, and her heart sinks. As much as she doesn't want to, it's time for her to let him go. He looks just like her husband. But she knows.

The whole hallway seems to shiver. Jane reaches for a wall to brace herself when a feather-light touch on her back steadies her instantly. She takes a deep breath and meets the eyes of the man before her. "You've been here for me this whole time, whenever I needed you," she tells not-Kurt, as if he were the real one. "But now I need you to go."

A beat of silence passes between them. Finally, he gives her a resigned smile, just like she knew he would. "Okay," he agrees easily, and in the red-tinged light of the hall he already seems half gone. A glint of something catches Jane's eye; she looks down to find a ring resting on the floor between their feet. She reaches for it, and as her fingers close around it, a flash of her wedding day sweeps through her: flowers, sunlight, a happiness she never thought she would contain. "I love you," she says, to an empty hallway.

Alice steps out from behind her as she's fitting the ring carefully onto her finger. The doll has disappeared from the young girl's grip; she presses her empty palm to the scanner outside Remi's doors. A chime sounds, familiar and clear. The doors unlock with a series of heavy clicks, and Jane looks up into a set of her own eyes.

* * *

From her vantage point, Remi tracks Jane's progress through the world of her head. Each time they make eye contact, however brief, Remi sees the anger in Jane's eyes. _Good_, she thinks. _Let her know she's just like me_.

Until the last time Jane stands before her doors. The whir and clank of machinery signals their imminent opening, and Remi looks up in disbelief. Her eyes meet Jane's and there is no more anger there.

Remi doesn't think she's ever felt such a rush of rage. How _dare_ Jane—self-righteous, cancerous Jane—invade the last place she has left. Jane, who can afford the luxury of no longer being angry. Because _her_ whole world hasn't collapsed around her, because the people _she_ loves still live and breathe, still care enough about her that they'll…

Remi rises from her throne to face the intruder, that mere shade of herself. She tugs the sleeves of her shirt down over her tattoos—Jane's tattoos. They've made this Jane's body, and Remi can acknowledge now that that might have been one of the biggest mistakes of her life. Everything is crumbling around her now. This fortress is the last thing that's hers. And she intends to guard it with everything she has.

* * *

The room is bathed in a glaring red that pulls every detail into it, leaving only smudges of light and shadow. Entering it is as disorienting as plummeting underwater. Jane wades through with all the strength she's found. She thinks she hears light footsteps behind her, but her gaze is locked on the woman staring her down at the other end of the room. Remi visibly blazes with fury. She approaches, every muscle wound tight as a tiger poised to strike. "Jane," she spits out.

Jane freezes for a moment, face to face with what she's been chasing. Then a small hand finds its way into hers, and its warmth thaws out her voice. "Look," she says to Remi, inclining her head towards the little girl. "Do you remember what it was like to be her?"

But Remi clings to anger like it's the only thing she has left. She lifts her gun straight at Jane, but the girl silently steps between them. It's a futile gesture—she doesn't even reach Jane's shoulder—but Remi plays along, obediently lowering the gun to Alice's height. "Have it your way, kid."

"You can't hurt her," Jane says quietly. "Not more than she's already been hurt."

Remi's mouth tightens, and for just a second, her grip falters. Jane might remember, but she hasn't lived through it, not the way Remi has. And that's why Jane needs her.

"It's too late for her," she continues. "But it's not too late for you."

Remi's eyes snap toward hers, the movement as sharp as a knife. "Well," she grinds out, "it's about to be too late for _you_." And she lunges.

Her body skims through Alice's like the girl isn't even there and then she's on Jane and they're trading blows, as evenly matched as a mirror image attacking itself. But while Remi is wrathful, Jane is still deciding. Her determination wavers, and Remi strikes in that window of weakness. She sends Jane flying through the contents of a table, crashing into a monitor and sending up a shower of sparks so bright they feel like shattering glass. The ground rushes up at her hard.

Jane staggers to her feet. She manages to land a few blows on Remi, but the other woman drives a fist into her stomach, then knocks her back with a powerful kick to the chest. Jane hits the wall with Remi's hands at her throat. "This doesn't belong to you," she croaks, remembering a sliver of something just beyond her reach. Remi's eyes narrow. She glances towards the doors for a second; when she turns back, her face is cast in fire. Jane's flat on a table before she even registers what's happening. The impact knocks her breath away and—glasses shatter, a wine bottle tips, Roman and Kurt are gone, _gone_—the images overlay, her own face looming over her. "You're not a person," snarls Remi. Her grip tightens painfully. "You're nothing but a device. And you've outlived your usefulness."

Something glimmers above: a knife held aloft in her hand. And Jane remembers how this goes, remembers the cool metal plunging into her chest, the death she woke up to. Maybe this is all she gets. But _don't give up_, breathes a familiar voice in her ear. And Jane listens.

She lashes out with everything she has, launches herself off the table and attacks with a viciousness she knows belongs to Remi, and it shouldn't work but somehow it does: in the end Remi knocks her away, but the knife comes to a rest between Jane's feet. She straightens to see Remi's gaze flicker to the doors and back, rapid-fire.

"You won't kill me," she sneers at Jane, her scowl deepening even as something entirely different surfaces in her eyes. And suddenly Jane sees her, really sees her, maybe for the first time.

"You're right," Jane says slowly. She lets the knife fall from her hand, nudges it across the floor. "But you won't kill me either."

Remi scoffs. She glances suspiciously at the knife, but though she should be rushing Jane right now, she holds her position.

"You won't," Jane repeats. "I'm your only way out."

"I don't need a way out," retorts Remi, her voice harder than ever. But Jane knows her. She knows what that hardness hides.

She thinks she understands now, what Roman meant.

She inches a fraction closer, and Remi, amazingly, lets her. "You do. More than ever," Jane says to her. "Everything you had is gone. This doesn't end well for you. But you gave me the chance to start over, once, and now I can help you do the same. I'm the only one who can."

Remi studies her distrustfully. Apart from the way her eyes keep darting toward the entrance, she is stiller than ever. "I don't need you," she denies, every syllable bit out razor-sharp.

"You _are_ me." Again, Jane moves closer, and again, though she's coiled tight as a spring, Remi makes no move to stop her. "I know you. I remember everything that happened to you, the good, and the bad. And it wasn't your fault."

Remi's breath catches audibly, as if no one has ever told her this before. And the words keep spilling out of Jane, and as she speaks them aloud she means every one. "Shepherd should have helped us," she says. "We needed help, but she needed soldiers. So she manipulated you, kept you alone, wielded you like a weapon. But she was wrong. Just like what happened to you in the orphanage was wrong. What you were made into, all the things you were made to do, they're not your fault."

Remi looks away, a curtain of ink-dark hair hiding her face. "We were beyond help," she answers distantly, as if she's talking to herself. "Killers. No one could have changed that."

"You weren't irredeemable, Remi, you're still not." Jane shifts forward again. They're barely a foot apart now. "You deserved help. You deserve the same second chance I got." Remi's shaking her head, just barely, and Jane follows her line of sight to the doors, to the phantom lingering there. "You don't have to be what she says you are," she tells Remi quietly.

"It's what I _am_," Remi responds, but her voice wavers. And as if summoned, Alice is back, at Remi's side this time. She gives her older self a mute smile, slips a hand gently into hers. Remi swallows. Her features contort into a grimace just like Jane's when she's in pain, but her hand tightens around the little girl's.

"You're more than what you've done," Jane says, to Remi, to Alice, to herself. She feels the room becoming indistinct around them, their focus narrowing to just each other. "I remember it all now. And I forgive you."

Remi takes a shaky breath. Jane mirrors her, but there's still something bitter on her tongue, a debt she owes. "There's something else," she confesses. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I did to Oscar. I'm sorry I couldn't protect Roman. I'm sorry for what happened to Shepherd. I—I'm sorry for what I did to you. All of it."

Without warning, fury pours back into Remi. "You took everything from me!" she explodes, startlingly loud in the wake of her silence. She wrenches her hand from Alice's grip; the girl staggers backwards. Distracted, Remi doesn't seem to notice. In her loss of control, she's exposing more weakness than Jane has ever seen in her.

"Do you know how much I loved Oscar?" she says sharply. "How much I loved Roman? And now they're gone."

Rattled, Jane steps back. Her heart wrenches with sorrow all over again. "I know," she murmurs. "I know."

Remi lets out a jagged breath, wipes her face angrily. "How can I forgive you?" she asks, devastatingly quiet, her voice breaking.

Behind Remi, Alice is draped in half-shadow. Jane watches her for a minute. "I don't know," she answers honestly. "Maybe—maybe you need to remember."

"Remember." Remi chuckles humorlessly. She turns away, catches sight of Alice, stiffens. Something unreadable flickers across her face. After a second of hesitation, she reaches out to take the young girl's hand. Neither of them speaks, but Jane remembers the strength Alice gave her with each touch, the strength she drew from remembering, no matter how it hurt. Finally Remi breaks through the hush. "You took everything from me," she says to the air, "but I gave it up first."

Jane shifts uneasily. That vague impression resurfaces: a long-haired version of herself at her own door, taking back what's hers. "It doesn't belong to me."

A corner of Remi's mouth twitches grimly upward. "It does. I can't take that back." She exhales heavily, lifts her free hand to examine the patterns inked into her skin. In the hazy red light, the designs look nebulous, transformed. "You said that I'm more than the things I've done."

"I meant it."

Remi closes her eyes. After a long moment, she opens them to look down at Alice. "You can go now," she says, her voice low and raspy with unshed words. When she speaks next, it's so soft that Jane barely hears. "Be at peace."

The room has changed around them. The tables and conference rooms and computers have crumbled into the background, leaving only a dark expanse and a circle of thick crimson light. Remi tears her eyes away from the empty space where Alice stood. She lifts her face to Jane, and there's something incredibly vulnerable there, as if she's grown too weary to disguise it. "I just want to understand," she says hoarsely, and Jane hears the veiled request there. She extends her hand. Still, Remi hesitates.

"Come with me," Jane offers, almost pleading. "We're one person. We don't have to be separate anymore."

Remi's gaze sears through her as if searching something out. Jane swallows. "I need you," she admits, and her voice trembles. And Remi reaches out for her hand.

A slice of light pierces her through the middle. The red drains away into white, revealing workstations, offices, people working at their computers or milling around with files and tablets. All the details fill back in. And she—Jane, Remi—fills in too. She's the sum of her experiences, all of them. She is the hurt she endured as Remi and the truths she found as Jane. She is everything, every minute of her life. She's finally, finally, whole.

And she opens her eyes, breathes herself back into the world.


	2. External

_A/N: I'm back! So the show sort of addressed the whole "Jane and Remi are the same" thing during Jane's conversation with Borden, but I still would have liked to see it go more that way in "Check Your Ed", so here's the last part of my rewrite of that episode. Enjoy! Now I'm off to go finish the six or so episodes I missed..._

_Disclaimer: I don't own Blindspot._

* * *

"Uh, what is that?" asks Rich suddenly. All eyes in the room flick to the screens above Jane's head: synapses both red and blue, blinking in harmony. "Should I get my 3D glasses or something, because I think I left them somewhere around here…"

He's still babbling when Jane opens her eyes. Dr. Williams rushes over, tailed by Patterson. Kurt is already at her side, and he leans in urgently. "Jane?"

"It's me," she answers. There's a pause that seems to go on forever; anxiety builds to a crescendo beneath Kurt's skin. "I'm Jane," she says at last, slow and careful. "But I'm also Remi."

Kurt reels back instinctively. No one says a word, and in the silence he catches Jane's—_Remi's?_—eye, sees the hurt and disappointment there fade into resignation. He doesn't know which is worse. He'd imagined how this would go, his reunion with Jane, played the fantasy over and over in his head as he waited. If she'd woken up as Remi, even that would have been simpler. Kurt doesn't know what to do with this.

He swallows, his throat suddenly dry. "You're—"

"I'm still the person you know," she clarifies. "I'm still Jane. I'm just…more."

Kurt wants to say something, to tell her that of course she's still Jane, that he loves her and he's missed her so much, but his tongue is as heavy as lead, his whole body frozen. The whole room feels like it's pressing in on him, crowding him closer to the half-stranger beside him. Every second of his silence makes her face fall further.

"Please," she murmurs, her eyes searching him out like Jane's always did. Her hand moves towards him tentatively before drawing back. "Please. I'm sorry, Kurt, I'm sorry. I'm still Jane. I'm still your wife. Please don't hate me."

"I don't—" Kurt stops himself, deliberately softens his tone. "I don't hate you." His words from years ago come back to him—_I just don't know who you are anymore_—and to keep them from rising, he takes her hand in his. It's just the same as before she woke up: his wife's body, a cypher under the surface.

Her fingers close around his, but a moment later she's pulling away, leaning back against the bed. "It's okay," she tells him tiredly. "I understand."

Kurt's hand prickles with a sudden empty chill. Every muscle screams at him, conflicting signals. Paralyzed, he looks helplessly at Dr. Williams, who clears her throat. "We'll have to run more tests, but it looks like the barrier that the ZIP created in Jane's brain has broken down instead of flipping back." She indicates the screen. "You can see both red and blue synapses firing. Those memories—and distinct personalities—are no longer separate."

Kurt studies the screen, its map of circling lights that shows him who inhabits his wife. "Jane," he says slowly. Something occurs to him and his brow furrows. "Can I still call you Jane?"

She looks surprised at the question. "I—yes. You can."

"We're going to rename you later, though, right?" Rich blurts out. "How about a portmanteau? Rayne? Jaimie? No, now that I'm saying that out loud it just sounds cheesy. And definitely not as punk rock as Jane Doe, I'll have to think of something—" He stops when Patterson elbows him, but not before hissing something about her "ridiculous" first name under his breath.

"Listen," Patterson ventures, with a pointed glare at Rich, "sorry to bring this up, but, Jane—if you're Remi at all, you're in danger of being taken by the CIA."

Jane exhales shakily. "Yeah. I'd say no one has to know, but I guess any tests will be pretty clear on that." She looks around the room, gauging each face in turn. "I'll take a polygraph. That MRI one. Whatever you need."

Patterson offers her a cautious smile. "We'll figure something out."

There's a stilted pause that even Rich doesn't break. Dr. Williams takes the opportunity to help Jane remove the headcap and monitors, receiving a quiet word of thanks.

"You should take her to the hospital now," the doctor recommends.

Jane's eyes drift to Kurt's as she slowly sits herself up. He stares back at her, hating every thought that darts through his mind, until he lands on one: this strong, resourceful, beautiful woman is just another shade of the one he fell in love with. Just another piece of her for him to get to know. Maybe, in time, that will sink in.

"I'll drive," he says.

* * *

When the doctor arrives with the test results, Kurt and Patterson leave the room to talk with him. They try to act casual about it, but it's a stark gesture. Jane is well aware that they don't trust her in her present state, but that doesn't tame her irritation. Luckily—and she never thought she'd say this—Rich stays behind.

Jane thought he was tedious at first, exhausting, and she often still does, but she will say this for Rich: he has a great talent for taking her mind off of things. Even Remi, who usually found him irritating, appreciated how uncomfortable his wild babbling made the other team members. Reade's perturbed face never gets old.

If she's being truthful, she has to admit it: when she thinks of the team, Rich is always included.

"Be brutally honest," he's saying to her. "In your weird drug-induced spiritual journey, what did I look like? Was I like a taller, more handsome version of me, if that's even possible? Or was I my spirit animal? A psychic once told me it was a hummingbird, but personally I'm convinced it's a jaguar because we're both irresistibly sexy, and one time I got so high at an auction that I thought this really nice mink coat was—"

"You looked pretty much the same," Jane cuts in hurriedly.

"That's…disappointing." He frowns. "As long as I wasn't uglier, I guess…"

"I liked your shirt?" she offers.

"I can work with that! I have style, no matter what Boston says. I mean, in what universe are those suburban-dad button-downs cooler than this?" He sweeps his hands down his body and waggles his eyebrows.

Jane almost laughs before her somber mood returns. After a moment of uncharacteristic silence, Rich catches her eye. "Hey," he says. "Remember how much you all used to hate me? If they can get used to me, they can get used to anyone."

"I'm pretty sure Zapata still hates you," Jane muses. When he gives her one of his disapproving-mom looks, she sighs. "That was different, Rich."

He shakes his head. "It's not as different as you think."

"You really think they're going to be okay with this?" Jane demands, skeptical. Sudden bitterness washes over her. "You really think _Kurt_ will be okay with this?"

"Oh, you two have a ton of work to do. But it's nothing you haven't done before. Every time I saw you two you were so in denial! Seriously, Stubbles was hooking up with someone different _every time_ you brought me in. The lesbian, the NSA's own Iron Lady, probably some others I never had the pleasure of meeting…but you still ended up together." He gestures animatedly. "I'm pretty sure you guys will be okay."

Jane twists the hospital sheets in her fist. Her mind leaps abruptly to Kurt and Nas—what a strange phase that had been—and back. "I don't know," she admits. "You saw them. They don't know what to do with me."

"Well, yeah," Rich snorts. "Of course they don't. Can you imagine if Spock and Mirror Spock were literally the same person at the exact same time? Or Spiderman and Venom? Or Data and Lore, or Jekyll and Hyde, or Phoebe and—"

"Rich," Jane growls.

"Sorry, sorry. You're right, Venom technically wasn't Spiderman's—" He stops himself this time. "I didn't say it's going to be easy, because it definitely won't be. And it's going to take time. But, honestly? It was kind of ridiculous to think that this wasn't going to happen at some point in your life."

Jane considers what he's saying for a long moment. "You know," she says finally, tempering her gratitude, "if you weren't so obnoxious, everyone would probably listen to you more."

"Okay, first of all, that's hurtful," he complains. "Second of all…you're probably right. But seriously, that's all I get? No "thanks, Rich, you give amazing advice, you should get a raise and maybe an office that's not a literal broom closet?" Nothing?"

That elicits a real smile, which makes Rich's mouth fall open. "Is that—a smile? Are you smiling right now? At _me_? I like this new Jane." He eyes her warily. "Just don't try to pull any Remi shenanigans on me, I'll see it coming from a mile away."

Jane rolls her eyes. "Please. You had no idea I was Remi."

"_Really_ not reassuring."

Outside the hospital room, the muffled voices sink into brief silence before rising anew. Jane strains to hear but can't pull out a single word. Not even her name. Anger begins to bloom in the pit of her stomach again, prickly and hot; she has to force herself to redirect to Rich. He's watching her so thoughtfully it almost makes her jump out of her skin for a second.

"You know," he says, tone mild with curiosity, "you're not acting that much like Remi. Not that I know what she was like, exactly, because she was pretending to be Jane pretty much the entire time, but I guess that's my point. Sure, you're a little different, but you kind of just seem like…Jane?"

The door opens before Jane can answer. She wants to tell him that he isn't wrong, that Remi and Jane were never polar opposites; that, no matter what she believed, they were always the same person underneath. That, in a way, Jane is just who Remi grew to be. But the doctor is approaching her with test results and definitive answers, so she keeps that truth held close for now.

* * *

Kurt waits until the doctor has left to approach her. "Jane," he begins, failing to disguise the urgency in his voice. "You broke Shepherd out of a black site yesterday. Do you know where she is now?"

Jane was expecting this, but she still freezes a little. She remembers to knit her brow, lean forwards into her hands a little, imbue her tone with guilt. "Shepherd," she murmurs. "I—I hired someone—we intercepted the van—" She twists her hands together, lets them tremble just a little. "I can't believe I did that."

"Jane. Concentrate. Do you know where she is?"

"We—" Jane screws her eyes shut, like she sometimes does when trying to pull a memory to the surface. "We went south. Then—then east? East, I think. We drove for…twenty minutes, maybe. Thirty? It was—surrounded by woods. A cabin, or—or—"

She doubles over, suddenly, bringing a hand to her forehead and gritting her teeth. There's the sound of quick footsteps. Someone rests a gentle hand on her back. "Jane?" Patterson's voice. Cautious concern.

Jane opens her eyes slowly. "I—I'm sorry. It's all blurring together."

"That's normal," Patterson assures her, though Jane is pretty sure there's no precedent to base that on. "Your memories should become clearer with time."

"You did just wake up from an experimental neurological procedure," Rich adds.

Jane dares to glance at Kurt. His eyes are narrowed, as if he isn't sure whether to trust what she's told him, but as she's predicted, he must decide it's worth investigating regardless. She knows her husband. He rises abruptly, one hand rummaging in his pocket. "Rich, can you get Jane home? Keep her company?" He hands something over, and it takes Jane a moment to realize it's her apartment key. Rich palms it with an obnoxious salute.

"It would be my pleasure to entertain the fair lady."

Everyone rolls their eyes simultaneously, a trick perfected after prolonged Rich Dotcom exposure. Kurt heads for the door with a single glance back. "Patterson?"

As they leave, Rich turns to Jane. "To your castle, milady?"

"Actually…" Jane starts. "I need a favor, Rich."

"Well that's either ominous or promising."

She hesitates, then calls on a confidence she doesn't feel. "I need you to cover for me. Just for an hour."

"All right, what is this?" He fixes her with a knowing look. "Do you have a secret meeting with a band of assassins to get us all taken out? You might not remember, but that already happened last year. Oh, and it didn't work."

"Please, Rich."

He sighs, suddenly serious. "You know if I step even one toe out of line, I'm going back to prison, right? Reade insists on telling me like every twenty seconds. I practically have the whole speech memorized."

A sudden pang of guilt hits Jane and she fumbles for words. "I won't let that happen," she says finally. "Just go to my apartment—you have the key. If Kurt calls, tell him I'm taking a nap or something. And if he comes home, I—I must have snuck out. That's all." Rich is still watching her with a solemn expression. Seriousness is a look that never ceases to be surprising on him, and maybe that's what he wants: for you to forget he has depth. Jane grumbles internally when he still doesn't say anything. "I'll owe you," she promises. "Okay?"

"Okay," he agrees reluctantly, and without warning he's back on. "A favor from an FBI agent who's only _half_ crooked—the crooked half's you, Remi, in case you somehow didn't guess—this is a first for our hero Rich Dotcom. I have so many ideas, I'm gonna make a list…"

Jane lets out a long-suffering breath and grabs her clothes, rummaging through the pockets. Her fingers scrape against fabric. "Uh, Rich?" she asks awkwardly. "…Can I borrow some money?"

* * *

The warehouse is utterly silent when Jane enters. She moves through it with learned stealth, expecting Shepherd hiding in some shadowy corner with a weapon held aloft, but as she reaches the center she sees a tangle of blond curls: her adoptive mother, asleep exactly where Jane had left her. It's hours later than she'd promised.

The whole scene is so, so telling.

Jane purposefully increases the volume of her footsteps so as not to startle her, but Shepherd jolts upright anyway. "Remi?" she asks blearily.

"It's me."

"I started to think you weren't coming back." Shepherd's eyes are dark with exhaustion. Looking at her, Jane feels anger, guilt, relief, despair, in equal measure, a tornado of confusing reactions stemming from too many splits in her consciousness. But at least she knows where each one comes from.

"I got held up," she says shortly, and her voice is steady and strong.

"With what?"

Jane crosses over to her in three swift steps. "Listen," she commands. "You were right. You should get out of here. Go somewhere they won't find you. Live your life."

Shepherd forces herself further upright. "You…you won't come?"

Jane swallows, and tries to hold on to her confidence. "I can't."

"Why not?" Shepherd asks suspiciously. Her eyes narrow—even in this state, when every word trembles and unintended tears streak down her face, she's sharp as ever. "You're not Remi, are you? Where's the rest of the FBI? Waiting outside to arrest me?"

"There's no one outside." A little venom works its way loose. "Look at you. You're tired, weak. I could overpower you in thirty seconds. If I wanted to arrest you, I would have done it already. That's not why I'm here."

"Don't you want justice?" mocks Shepherd, through blatant confusion.

"That wasn't justice," Jane spits.

"Then _why_?"

The question catches Jane off guard. Shepherd has turned quiet, steady, like a condemned woman facing her executioner. Jane shakes her head; she isn't sure she knows what _why_ is asking.

"I'm not just Jane," she says. "I'm Remi, too. I remember. I remember _everything_. You weren't good to us, Shepherd. You could have saved us but you used us instead, and Roman is dead because of it. But I got a second chance because of you. You helped make me who I am. And I like who I am."

"What are you trying to say? You forgive me?" Shepherd sneers, as halfheartedly as she had in Jane's head.

"Do you want my forgiveness?" Jane bites back. "Have it. I forgive you. But I'm also done with you, and I am leaving. Go if you want. Stay if you want. It's your decision. But I am not coming."

Shepherd stares for a minute, as if trying to summon a strength that won't come. Her head bows instead. "Remi," she croaks out. "Remi. I'm sorry."

Jane nods, but her throat goes dry. "I know."

"Remi." They're close enough for Shepherd to reach out to hold Jane's forearms. "I'm sorry, Remi. I'm sorry."

Jane freezes at the touch, but something comes over her. A memory, maybe, something warm, almost content. Whatever it is compels her to wrap her arms around her adoptive mother and hold her, just for a minute. "I know," she murmurs. "I forgive you."

Shepherd's body feels so frail pressed against hers. Jane draws shaky breath after shaky breath, unsure if she's remembering her real mother—her birth mother—or the one she's holding. After a long moment, she pulls away. "Go. Before they find you."

Shepherd nods, brokenly, and Jane steps back before she can feel anything more, because it's already a storm, already a war. Shepherd's lips are parting, her face so weary, so weathered, but instead of the things Jane thinks she might say she just says, "Goodbye, Remi."

* * *

The sun is on the cusp of rising as Jane returns home. Her thoughts are heavy, all-consuming, but her unconscious manages to skirt around them to guide her back to the apartment. She only snaps out of it at the door, fumbling for a key she doesn't have. Rich answers when she knocks, looking twitchier than normal but otherwise every inch himself, and Jane's almost surprised to see him there. She half expected to see herself.

Kurt arrives a couple hours later. Jane can hear the frustration in his heavy footsteps, in the way he dismisses Rich's questions and then dismisses Rich himself. From the bedroom, where she's pretending to rest, Jane listens to him shuffling around the apartment. Eventually he retreats to the bathroom to brush his teeth—he gets impatient and stops about a minute in, like he always does. When Jane hears the click of the guest bedroom door, her body slackens with relief.

She doesn't think he sleeps well, or at all; she hears him tossing and turning as she lies awake, too lost in her own head. Her heart pounds with what she's ashamed to admit is dread. It's hard to remember how at peace she had felt, just before she woke up.

They both give up by late morning. They sit at the bar in the kitchen, sipping mugs of almost uncomfortably strong coffee, so unsure in each other's company that it makes them both silent. Kurt keeps casting furtive glances at Jane that she pretends not to notice. His scrutiny makes her palms sweat, makes her head pound in rhythm with her heart, and worst-case scenarios keep spilling out behind her eyes. Her coffee dwindles to dregs and they still haven't said a word.

Kurt breaks the silence when he gets up for a refill. It starts with Shepherd, the same questions that Jane plays off with feigned confusion, wondering how long she should wait before 'remembering'. Kurt pauses at the counter. "Jane," he begins, but he doesn't press her or shut down the way she thinks he might. Instead he opens the fridge and ducks his head inside. "You hungry?"

He makes them tofu scramble, spiced just the way Jane likes. She comes over to chop the peppers and tomatoes, and the quiet between them as they work feels amiable, familiar. They set down plates and serve the food and as they sit down to eat, some barrier breaks. The conversation just comes naturally.

They talk for hours, long after their plates are emptied and the coffee pot drained. They talk until their voices are hoarse, until Jane gets up to stir honey into cups of tea. By late afternoon they've migrated to the sofa, and though they settle on opposite ends, they're still talking. Some distance between them is closing.

Even so, it's far from over. Jane can see that Kurt still wants to separate her into a before and after, as if she could be sectioned off into the parts of her he likes and the parts he doesn't. And Shepherd—someday she's going to tell him what happened with Shepherd, and that distinction might flare up all over again. She doesn't regret letting Shepherd go, and maybe that will be the rift that finally drives them apart. But maybe it won't.

Jane doesn't know.

She watches Kurt watch her in that careful way of his, like he thinks maybe she won't notice she's being scrutinized. But she sees right through him. And she loves him, she really does, but he's not the beginning and end of her world the way he used to be. If she has to, she'll be okay without him.

He's in the middle of telling her a story, an incident she missed involving Rich and Patterson. As he's talking, he tugs a throw blanket off the back of the couch and tosses it over their legs. Jane laughs at the story's climax. She smiles at her husband.

She doesn't know.

* * *

There's no real reunion in the end. Reade is off interrogating Zapata, Patterson and Rich are working on Roman's cache—because Jane is still dying, she'd almost forgotten—and Kurt is already by her side. None of the other agents react beyond a cursory nod. Jane tries to move through like nothing's changed, but she feels so different that it's almost like lying.

It's lonely, being surrounded by a sea of oblivious people. Jane's spent the last few months trapped in that particular prison. She'd been so, so alone in the end, and it had made her so incredibly angry. She'll never forget the way she burned with it, the way her anger had consumed her. And her heart caves in a little now to acknowledge the truth: she'd only been that angry because she couldn't be sad. Grief, regret, loneliness; all of it had to become hate. There wasn't room in her life for anything else.

Jane understands this now. But she's still angry: it's just quieter. She can't let go of it until she can come to terms with everything that fueled it, everything she's lost. And that's going to take time, because it has to be silent. Everyone is already watching her closely for any hint of disloyalty, for the slightest slip-up. This, she'll have to do on her own.

Knowing this—that she's lived a whole other life, and she's the only one left to mourn it—makes her feel lonely all over again. And maybe she always will be, a little. But at least she's not _alone_.

Here's Rich, invading her space with his enthusiastic welcome, nudging Patterson when her own greeting is too tepid for his taste. And here's Patterson rolling her eyes, so much more guarded than she used to be, her old lightheartedness still shining through from time to time. And Kurt's here next to her, and though he's stubborn and too narrow-minded sometimes, he's trying, no one could miss how he's trying. And Reade's nearby, level-headed and steady and secretly such a nerd, and Zapata, quick-witted, resolute, even if she's too far gone this time. And though Jane is working at a desk for now instead of going out into the field, she's still here, with them. After all of this, they're still together.


	3. Alignment

"I want to change my name."

Kurt doesn't take his eyes off the road, but Jane still catches his look of alarm. _Too abrupt_, she thinks. She's been checking herself like this a lot lately. It's been mere days since she came unsettlingly close to death, and she doesn't want to admit how much it shook her; she wonders if Kurt can see it in her anyway, just as she can see it in him. He's become so quick to jump to the worst conclusion.

"I'll stay Jane," she clarifies. "I know everyone's used to it. I just want to change my last name."

"You didn't want to take my last name," Kurt says after a brief pause. And he's right. She'd held on to Jane Doe for so long, rejected so many opportunities to change it. But she thinks she finally understands why.

"I still don't," she tells him. "I want my original name back. My parents' name."

Kurt's grip on the steering wheel loosens a fraction. "Oh." Ahead, a traffic light blinks to red, and he brings the car to an unexpectedly gentle stop. "Kruger?"

Jane nods. "Yeah. Kruger."

She had a lot of time to think, in the hospital, and her mind kept returning to them. Her parents. For years, Jane only remembered them as corpses. That seems incredible to her now; but to Kurt, to Patterson, to Reade and Rich and Zapata, that's still all they are.

"My mom painted," she says suddenly. "She showed me how to mix colors, but Roman was too impatient to learn." Jane stops for a moment, surprised by herself, but the memories keep spilling out. "She stopped painting, near the end. But she liked portraits. She wanted to paint my dad, but he brought his papers and he wouldn't stop working. You couldn't even see his face in the portrait because he was bent over the whole time."

Kurt chuckles lightly. If he's thrown off by the anecdote from out of the blue, he doesn't show it. Jane finds herself smiling too. It feels good, showing Kurt more of her. It feels good to give voice to those memories.

"I wonder what happened to her paintings," she wonders quietly.

Kurt glances over at her, and his eyes have softened. "Do you—" He clears his throat. "Do you want to be called Alice, too?"

Something flutters in Jane's chest as the car starts moving again. "No," she answers immediately, honestly. "No, I like being Jane. I just don't want to be a Jane Doe anymore." She turns her hands over in her lap: the tattoos that belong to all of her, the skin she was born in, the wedding ring she chose. "I know who I am."


End file.
